When the Word is Made Flesh
by Sidney Sussex
Summary: TRIGGER WARNING for past abuse. John thinks what has happened to him makes him worthless; Sherlock has to show him that isn't true. Rated for trigger and mild slash. De-anon from kinkmeme.
1. Chapter 1

_I neither own nor profit from any of these characters; they are the property of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss and the BBC._

_If you see something that you think ought to be changed or improved, please feel free to let me know, if you'd like. Constructive criticism is always welcome._

_De-anon from kinkmeme prompt:_

_"Sherlock and John return from a case giddy. Sherlock begins to undress John.  
>And John pulls back.<br>Sherlock is confused. He goes to embrace John; John pulls back again.  
>John is ashamed… and frightened.<br>Sherlock discovers that John's entire back is horribly scarred. With gentle questioning and a great deal of deducing, John reveals that his father was horrifically abusive toward him. He not only made John believe he was worthless, he whipped him. Constantly. Harry and his mother knew and did nothing.  
>Sherlock, in a show of immense emotion and love, is determined to prove to John that he is not worthless, and that the scars upon his back do not make him ugly."<br>_

* * *

><p>Sherlock's done it again.<p>

John can tell right away by the look on his face and the way his eyes are shining as he turns to Lestrade, the words already beginning to tumble wildly from him as he leaps from clue to clue, outlining all the things the team has missed. He's speaking rapidly; John isn't immediately sure why, but he catches on quickly as Sherlock shouts the last few words and takes off at a blind run, heading down an alleyway in the obvious anticipation of John's being right behind him.

Lestrade calls after them, but it goes unheard. Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are on the case, and generally, that involves a lot of running.

They collar their man, of course, dragging him back to Lestrade gasping and struggling, but Sherlock has jumped on the bonnet of one too many cars this time, and the irate owner is already at their heels, words unintelligible in the rapidly-decreasing distance between them.

One quick, shared glance and they are off again, leaving Lestrade to subdue the murderer and the driver, racing back to Baker Street as though both were still in hot pursuit. They love this, the running and the rush and the sudden stumble to a halt when they realize they are safe inside their own front door, stooped and breathless and giggling like best friends, like children.

Until they're not, and Sherlock's lips are on John's and John's hands are tangled in Sherlock's hair and this is new, this is something they have thought about (privately, behind closed doors, without a word) but never done.

They part, short of breath now for two reasons, and lock gazes for a split second.

Then they are one again, John pulling Sherlock closer, and Sherlock's hands finding the top button of John's shirt, and then another, and another, and –

– suddenly John is pulling away, alarm clearly written on his features, tripping over his heels in his haste to be somewhere, anywhere but here. He ends up in the corner, back against the wall.

The slightly disbelieving smile drops from Sherlock's face, replaced with consternation as he tries to understand what has just happened.

"John?"

"I – Sherlock, I – "

John is confused, or scared, or something else. He looks almost sick in the dim light of the corridor. Sherlock has never been very good with people's emotions; he hasn't the patience. But this is John, and what they were just doing means _something_, and Sherlock can't just shrug it off. He has to understand.

He knows abstractly what comfort looks like. He's seen it done in films and on television. He's never had to worry about it himself, because John is the only person who cares whether or not the people Sherlock encounters are comforted for loss or trauma, and John has always been the one to do it.

So he tries what he has seen in films, reaching out for John, to close his arms around the smaller man and try to bring back what they just had.

But John draws farther back, crowding into the recess of Mrs. Hudson's door where Sherlock cannot reach him, clutching at his half-open shirt as he tries to fumble the buttons back into place.

"John?"

"Sherlock – please – don't – "

"I don't understand." An admission only John ever hears from Sherlock, and only ever when the question is of emotion and convention and social rules and mores. An admission that makes Sherlock vulnerable, but this is John.

"I can't – I – "

John takes a moment to compose himself and finish buttoning the shirt.

"Can we go upstairs?"

Sherlock nods, waves a hand at the stairs to indicate that John should go ahead of him.

"Will you talk to me there?"

A flash of something across John's face. He closes his eyes.

Sherlock waits.

With as tiny a gesture as possible, John nods.


	2. Chapter 2

John's way of talking about it is to make tea.

Sherlock lets him, sitting on the couch with his violin and his bow clasped loosely in his hands. He doesn't play the violin. Nor does he turn on the television, still tuned to John's latest foray into reality shows. He sits and listens to the sounds of John's movements in the kitchen, quiet clink of ceramic, hesitant step back and forth between the cupboards and the counter and the stove. Deducing John's thoughts should be easy, but it isn't, not this time.

Eventually, John runs out of things to do in the kitchen, so he comes to a halt in the doorway, mug clasped in both hands. Sherlock, seeing him at a loss, raises an eyebrow and gestures to the armchair that has long since been designated in both of their minds as John's. It takes a moment, but John manages to will his feet to move, one step, two steps, and he sits in the chair and tries to set his cup down. His hand is shaking, though, and he nearly spills his tea on top of the acid stain that Sherlock has already provided as a convenient marker for "where teacups go" and "where Sherlock's latest experiment in fingerprint removal is never allowed to go again."

He's out of excuses not to talk.

They sit for long minutes like that, while Sherlock watches John struggle for something to say. He isn't sure what's going on in John's mind – not yet – but he knows that it's important and he knows it isn't something he's going to want to hear.

"John," he begins.

It seems like that's all John needs to find his words. "Sherlock, I'm sorry."

"Why?"

"Because, well. Because – " he gestures awkwardly at the stairwell, implying everything that happened in the corridor below.

"Did you not want it?" Sherlock is fairly sure he would have been able to tell if that were the case; he's kissed without wanting to before, and it didn't involve heart rates increasing and hands doing _that_, and it certainly didn't involve repeating the experience.

"No, I… I did."

They sit in silence for another long moment. John is digesting the fact that he has just admitted to Sherlock that he wants to kiss him. Sherlock ought to be digesting that same fact, but he is too busy waiting for John to continue his explanation, because they were alone in that corridor and they were laughing and they were happy, and there was no reason for them to have stopped. And Sherlock, though he won't put it to words, hadn't wanted them to stop either.

He tries something else, because John is searching the air in front of him for a better explanation and not finding one. John's face, there, in the corridor, pale, eyes wide with –

"Were you afraid?"

John sinks down deeper into his chair, crossing his arms over his chest in a protective gesture. Frightened, then. But why frightened of something they both want?

"I don't understand," he says again, though John must know that by now.

"No," John agrees.

He's doing this wrong. That must be it. He's asking the wrong questions – he _never_ asks the wrong questions – or he's missing some vital piece of evidence – or _something_. His deductions are never this difficult, and why _now_, when it actually matters?

Running. They've done that a thousand times, ending up at the same place, desperate for breath. Laughing. Kissing, and they haven't done that before, but John has already said he wanted to, and Sherlock believes it. John's fingers twisted in his hair. The buttons of John's shirt, falling open.

And John, in the corner, pulling it closed around him, folding in on himself like he had been hit.

"Your shirt."

John's look is wary; Sherlock is too close to something.

"Were you… afraid?" The second time that question has been asked, but this time he already knows the answer, and he wants to hear the _why_.

A sigh; a deeply indrawn breath; a hitch at the end; a look of pain. "Sherlock, I can't."

"Then let me."

Sherlock is next to John in the blink of an eye, gaze locked on his friend's, mouth set in a serious line. He raises his hands deliberately, placing them on John's shirt, and waits.

He can feel John trembling through the thin fabric.

When John doesn't say anything, doesn't tear his gaze from Sherlock's, Sherlock slowly unbuttons the shirt – one, then the next, then the next, and then John's hands are over his, stopping him, and it was this button in the corridor, too, Sherlock remembers for some reason.

"Sherlock. I don't… want you to see this."

"See what?" he asks, trying his hardest to remember what John does with his voice and his face when gentleness and compassion are called for. He is fairly certain that this is one of those times.

John struggles for a moment with the words, but Sherlock can see that he is tired, tired of not being able to explain, tired of sitting there with Sherlock's eyes on his and no way to say what he means, tired of this, because this has happened before. Sherlock's deductive skills can tell him that much.

Instead, John just closes his eyes and takes his hands away from Sherlock's.

Sherlock has never been so careful as he is now, undoing the rest of the buttons and sliding the shirt gently from John's shoulders. He sees the scar on the left, thinks _Afghanistan_, and runs his hands along it, then back, down along the shoulder blade, eyes half-closed as he searches for the edge of the scar and the smooth, warm skin beyond it that is John, just _John_, pure and unmarred by the war.

He doesn't find it.

Something grows in him as his fingers explore blindly down the landscape of John's back, textured with a hundred tiny hills and valleys where there should have been nothing, just an uninterrupted expanse of skin. He feels it rising in his throat, cutting off the questions he should have and the words that never fail him, knowing what his hands are telling him, but still not understanding, and John is suddenly not the only one who looks sick.

"I thought… your shoulder…"

Speaking coherently has never been this difficult.

John says, "What?"

"You didn't tell me all of this… I thought it was just your shoulder."

Another slow, deep breath from John, held just a fraction of a second too long, and Sherlock feels his shoulders slump as he gives up his tenuous hold on whatever it is he has been trying to keep from Sherlock, because it isn't just the scars.

"This isn't from the war."

Sherlock isn't sure what's happened to his insides. The ice-water feeling is new to him. John is scarred, John is scarred _all over_, and it isn't from the war, so something happened, somewhere, somehow, someone hurt John.

_Someone hurt John._

Sherlock isn't oblivious enough for this to be the first time he realizes that the thought of John in danger makes him react in unexpected ways. But John isn't in danger now; these marks are old, and yet Sherlock's anger is new and bright and knife-edge sharp.

"Then where?" _Who did this to you, John, so I can go and find and punish –_

John is shaking his head. "You can't."

For once, it is John guessing what Sherlock is thinking.

Sherlock has to see, to know exactly where his horror and his anger are originating, to understand the fear in his friend's eyes. He presses, gently, on John's good shoulder (_he doesn't have a good shoulder; both are marked with scars_), and John leans forward slightly.

Sherlock averts his eyes immediately.

It's easier with his hands, somehow. Easier not to have to look at every tell-tale twist and knot and furrow in the skin that should be smooth. Easier not to have to take in every moment of pain written across John's back, marking every muscle and every bone, labelling him everywhere, _damaged_, _broken_. Easier to let his fingertips see for him.

"John, who?" The cracking of his voice is unexpected.

"My…" but John has given Sherlock all of his secrets today, and there is no sense in keeping this last one. Still, the words don't come easily. "My… father…"

If Sherlock's silence before was anger, his stillness now is murder.

"It… he – " The words catch in John's throat, but he swallows them and tries again. "If he hit me… he left Mum and Harry alone."

Sherlock couldn't answer John even if he knew what to say. Rage, it seems, leaves him wordless.

"They mattered more, and they… so I… and they let him…"

_Mattered more?_

_They let him?_

_They knew? They _knew_, they knew and let it happen?_

Sherlock's mind is ticking over at that statement, looking at John, quiet John, kind John, wonderful John, and how is it possible that someone could… that a _father_ could…

… and they _let him_…

… and somehow, even after they _let him_, John thinks they…

"Mattered… _more_?" His disbelief is as clear as the tremor in his voice.

John's face has been even until Sherlock speaks, but now it cracks, and Sherlock cracks with it. He has never felt so many things at once, didn't even know there were so many things to feel – grief and pride and incredulity and pain and love and gnawing, gnawing sadness, and _John_ is the one they did this to, not him, so why are the tears on his face and not on John's?

His hands close helplessly around nothing as he reels back. He wants to be holding John, he wants to be pulling him in tightly and telling him how wrong he is, how _no one_ matters more than John, how no one ever has, but John pulled away last time and Sherlock is afraid now, in a way he's never been before, of hurting him.

Somehow, even with the shoulder and the leg, he has always thought of John as unbreakable.

"Sherlock," John says, and the three steps between them might as well be a hundred miles or a brick wall, the way Sherlock is standing frozen, the way John's voice is swallowed by the distance between what Sherlock knows now and what he thought he knew. He forgets to react for a minute before he realizes that the word John has said is his name.

He meets John's eyes. The _thing_ in his throat is back and cutting off his breathing, and words would be too much to ask.

"I never wanted you to have to know."

_To have to know._

The rush of clarity to Sherlock's mind as he realizes – John has been keeping this secret as much for Sherlock's sake as for his own.

All John has ever done is protect everyone around him. A bullet, fired without a second thought to save a man he'd known for only hours. Fired from a gun left over from a war, a war where John picked up the pieces of the broken men beside him and put them back together, saved them, too. And now this thing that Sherlock's deductions have not ever touched (and what good are they, if the only person he can never save is John?), this younger John who stood in the way of one monster to save two others from his pain.

Monsters, all of them, because what else could you call a man who etched his anger indelibly into the skin of his child, over and over again until there was no place to lay another scar? And what else could you call a mother and a sister who watched it happen every time, offering up their son and brother as a sacrifice to save themselves?

The taste of bile in the back of his throat brings him back to the room and to John's face, crumpling at the revulsion in Sherlock's expression.

"I'm – " he chokes out, scrambling out of the chair and as far away from Sherlock as he can get, horrified stare from the top of the staircase as Sherlock realizes he has somehow done this wrong, let John think _he's_ the reason for the shudder that runs through Sherlock's body and the bitterness twisted into his features.

"John!" he manages, but it comes out hoarse and barely audible, and the muscles in John's shoulders tense under the shirt he has pulled back around himself.

"I'm sorry," thickly, from the top step. "I should have told you… I wanted to feel like I was… _good_, just for a while, worth something… wanted you to… I should have…"

And John is gone, down the stairs, door swinging shut, and gone, before Sherlock can choke and swallow and find breath for the shouting in his head, _no, no, come back, you're wrong, it's wrong, it's all so wrong._

_You're good._

_You're worth anything. Everything._

_Come back._


	3. Chapter 3

_Run after him._

That's Sherlock's first thought. But the second is _Leave him alone_, and he doesn't know which one is right, so he stands paralyzed in place until it's too late anyway, and John is too far to bring back.

The moment it's too late, Sherlock realizes he should have run.

He can tell by the silence in the flat, the way it presses down into his chest and makes it hard for him to steady himself, reaching out a hand to close on (_John_) the newel post at the top of the stairwell. This isn't right; there shouldn't be this mute testament to Sherlock's inability to help; there should be John, and Sherlock's arms around him, and quiet whispers, _John, he was a liar, you are good, so good, and strong and brave and beautiful, and how can you not know?_

But there is none of that, and he is sitting in John's chair, surrounded by the scent of him as he tries to think of how to fix something that is this broken.

His thoughts are wild, all over the map, from making tea for John (because, somehow, that always makes things right when it is John who makes the tea) to having his father executed (Mycroft can do it; Sherlock is sure of that), but he doesn't see how the first idea will help, and he thinks that the second one might be a Bit Not Good. So he sits, as the light fades into evening through the windows, and does nothing and hates himself for it.

The phone in his jacket pocket buzzes – adrenaline jackknifes through his chest – but the number is Lestrade's, and Sherlock remembers the case that started all of this, and that there are probably statements to be given and apologies to be made. He ignores the text, but turns the mobile over and over in his hands.

_John_, he types out, but deletes it.

_Come home_, but that feels stupid and meaningless and impossible, and he deletes that, too.

He is good at so many things; he knows it's true because John tells him every day, at every case and every crime scene (_fantastic, brilliant, amazing_), but at this, at anything that really matters, he is useless.

John also tells him that, sometimes, in kinder words, but he means buying milk and cleaning dishes and remembering that other people sleep at night. Not _this_.

It occurs to him that Mycroft will know where John is, and he wonders again if he should go to find him and bring him back. But if Sherlock was useless while John was still here, and useless now that he is gone, then what good will it do to chase him down and then stare, frozen, while he lets John slip away again?

John's words come back to him, and his hands twitch, tense into involuntary fists, white-knuckled at the way the sound carves out a hollow somewhere inside him. _My father… I never wanted you to have to know._

Sherlock has his mobile open again, typing rapidly, before he is even fully aware of what he's doing. His fingers almost hesitate on the "send" button; doing this goes against all the aloofness and distaste he usually works so hard to maintain, but there is nothing usual about this, and it's for John. Or maybe it's for them both, because Sherlock's need to do this is stronger than anything he has ever felt (until he remembers a corridor and a breathless kiss and John and thinks, stronger than _almost_ anything he has ever felt).

He isn't expecting a text message in reply, and true to form, his phone rings. Not the usual ring, but the one reserved for people whose calls Sherlock generally doesn't bother to take. There is a pang of guilt at this, and Sherlock resolves to take Mycroft off that list, because Mycroft would never stand by and allow Sherlock to be hurt – and he is extending that to John now, and that alone is enough for Sherlock to move Mycroft firmly to the group of people he tolerates, if grudgingly.

Mycroft gives Sherlock the information he has asked for, offers him a car (Sherlock declines) and, before he hangs up, stops to ask, "Have you thought about this carefully, Sherlock?"

"I don't need to."

"If not for yourself, for John."

"You didn't have to help me."

"No."

"But you did."

"Yes."

"Then I need no further reinforcement."

"Be careful, Sherlock. Think of John," is the last thing Mycroft says before breaking the connection.

The cab takes forty minutes to get there, seven minutes longer than the fastest route, but Sherlock doesn't care and throws too many bills into the passenger seat anyway. The street is quiet when he exits, filled with trees and too-tight houses crammed crookedly together.

It fits uncomfortably around Sherlock, too peaceful a neighbourhood to be familiar from case work, but too small and ordinary to remind him of growing up. He tries to picture John here, younger, but the thought only makes him angrier and he doesn't like it anyway, because John belongs at Baker Street and nothing else makes sense, especially not this mindless calm.

He finds the door with the right number on it, Mycroft's cool voice reciting the address in his head. Weathered paint over the wood – too much like Baker Street – a bedraggled garden, an old-growth tree shading the walk, all details that don't matter, but Sherlock has had over thirty years to learn to stop observing and he hasn't managed yet. There is a doorbell, but he knocks.

Briefly, nothing stirs. He hesitates to breathe, thinking irrationally that it might give him away; then there are footsteps, a voice from within the house, and a warm patch of yellow light on the step where he stands as the door is opened and a bemused face looks out.

"Mrs. Watson. Sherlock Holmes." A hand, offered and then withdrawn before she can move to shake it. Sherlock barely stops his lip from curling in disgust, but she isn't his reason for coming. "Is your husband at home?"

"I – yes, he is," she says, clearly uncertain about this tall, dark, forceful stranger glowering on her stoop. "Henry!"

Sherlock enters the house, brushing past Mrs. Watson in a way that brooks no argument, as the older man emerges from a back room.

"Hello?" It's plain he has no idea who Sherlock is. Good; Sherlock can introduce himself.

He's hit people before, in the rush of altercations on the job, and he knows how to do it. The training leaves his mind now, though, no thoughts of weak spots or stance or proper form, and his blind fist connects and cracks and suddenly the older Watson is on the floor, both hands covering his face. Sherlock can see blood, and of course it's just a nosebleed, but he wishes for a moment it were more, because this is nothing – _nothing_ – to what this man has done to John.

Sherlock's foot against his chest stops John's father from rising.

"What the _hell_ – "

"Mr. Watson. You and I need to have a talk."

The man on the floor makes a stifled sound, the swelling already rising to obscure the words he can't quite force out through surprise and pain and mounting anger.

"We have a mutual acquaintance, Mr. Watson. His name is John."

A muffled oath, cut off with a gasp as Sherlock bears down.

"Listen to me, because this is quite possibly the most important thing you will ever hear."

The pressure lifts, just slightly, enough so that John's father can suck in a groaning breath.

"John Watson is the best man I have ever known. And I've seen what you did to him."

The foot digs in again, involuntarily, as Sherlock remembers his soft touch on John's skin.

"And I want you to remember this, Mr. Watson. _He is what he is in spite of you._ In spite of torture, in spite of terror, in spite of your worthless – " _dig_ " – opinion – " _dig_ " – of your _own son's value_ – " _dig_ " – and you had better hope, with everything you are, that I never find out there is more to the story than I already know. Because if I do, Mr. Watson, if I do," and here he has to breathe, deeply; he is forgetting himself, and that won't do, this is about John, not him, "then no force on this Earth will stop me from seeing to it that you feel what John felt, every lash and every stroke, ten times over. And don't think I couldn't do it."

He lifts his foot away from John's father's shirt front, pausing to wipe it on the carpet – unnecessary, but he can't help but feel that everything that touches the man is somehow tainted – and turns his back, coat flaring out as he strides back toward the doorway.

He stops, framed against the quiet night, to say, "Remember this, Mr. Watson. _Your son is better than you will ever be, and he is protected, and he is loved._"


	4. Chapter 4

He's done what he needed to, now. He can go and find John.

He could ask Mycroft, but it wouldn't mean as much. John shouldn't be found by cameras and cell phone towers and men in clean-pressed suits. It's all too synthetic, and John needs Sherlock to be real.

He isn't sure what makes him think this, nor is he sure exactly what it means, but he does know that John has never wanted him to be anything but what he is, never asked him to slow down, never questioned what he does, never failed to trust him when they run, clear-headed and on fire, across all London in pursuit of something Sherlock hasn't bothered to explain. And oh, the running is glorious, and they both come alive.

John needs alive.

Sherlock needs alive, too, because alive means warm and comfortable and awkward and error-prone and yes, sometimes painful, but the kind of pain that comes from breathing too deep and trying too hard, the kind of pain they've always had _together_. And they can laugh it off and shake their heads and run away and start it all again, like they always have, together.

He needs to find John.

The first few places the doctor might go, he immediately dismisses as obviously wrong. Not Lestrade's; he doubts that John could face another friend tonight. Not Angelo's; that place is Sherlock's, and John wouldn't go there to escape him. He tries the Swan & Edgar, around the corner; John likes the warmth of the tiny pub and is particularly susceptible to the apple and rhubarb crumble, but one quick glance around the room is enough to tell him it isn't the right place. The park, then, or the bridge.

Rapid footsteps take him there because if this isn't it, if both of his remaining guesses are wrong, then Sherlock doesn't know where to go next. It's all very well to think of people and the world they live in as mundane until it _matters_, but now it's suddenly important to know where John goes when he "needs some air," or when he meets his old rugby mates, or when he's longer getting home from work than he should be, because Sherlock has counted the minutes of the walk exactly, and he notices when John is late.

He _needs_ to find John so badly that he almost _doesn't_, practically at a run through Regent's Park in the direction of Waterloo Bridge, too urgently occupied to pay attention to the huddled figure on the bench until a soft sound reaches his ears and he stops dead.

John is cold, lips pressed together and shivering slightly when Sherlock reaches him. He left the flat in only a thin shirt, and he's been out here for hours. Sherlock's throat tightens at the sight, wrench in his chest and burning at the corners of his eyes, and he pulls John in close and wraps his coat around them both, and John is too worn out to try to fight it.

He lets Sherlock hold him, try to warm him up, but he doesn't understand, so Sherlock searches for the right way to tell John all the things he told John's father, and in the meantime, he just goes on holding. And Sherlock's phone is buzzing and buzzing, but Lestrade can wait until tomorrow and Mycroft can go to hell (just for tonight; Sherlock hasn't forgotten the favour Mycroft did him), only then John's phone starts buzzing, too, and John's sense of duty is much more developed than Sherlock's, so, even exhausted and shivering, he answers.

Sherlock can hear Lestrade's voice on the other end of the line. He's asking if John has seen Sherlock, telling him about an assault called in by a Henry Watson – and even as Lestrade begins to say the name, Sherlock snatches the phone away from his friend's ear. It's too late, he can see that John has heard, but there are more important things to worry about right now.

"What did you tell him?" Sherlock's voice is dark with the fear of what Lestrade might just have done. Because if Lestrade has told Watson where to find Sherlock, then he's also told him where to find John.

"Told him he must be mistaken," Lestrade says calmly. "That Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are highly valued consultants for the Metropolitan Police. Took a statement, but there's been an awful lot of paperwork lately – things are bound to get lost in the shuffle."

Breathing seems unfamiliar, and Sherlock realizes he'd forgotten for a minute.

"Sherlock – " and the Detective Inspector's voice lowers a shade, as if afraid that John might overhear, "can you justify all this to me?"

"Yes," Sherlock replies immediately. "But not now."

"Not ever," says Lestrade. "I don't want to know. If you say it was justified – whatever it was – then that's enough for me."

Lestrade rings off before Sherlock can respond, not that he's sure what he would have said in any case. Thank God the inspector can tell when something carries more weight than Sherlock's usual mockery of the official channels. He makes a mental note to have John buy Lestrade a drink.

But right now, John is heavy in his arms, tucked inside the rough material of his coat and growing slowly warmer. He hasn't moved since Sherlock took the phone away from him, but the shivering is quieting and he's not as pale as he was.

Sherlock doesn't know what makes him do it, but he touches his lips softly to the dark blond hair against his chest, then runs a hand gently over it, smoothing it back down. John's voice is muffled by the fabric of Sherlock's sleeve, but the words are clear enough as he asks, trembling voice tinged with a dozen fears, "What did you do?"

"Nothing," says Sherlock, watching his breath ruffle wayward strands, "comparatively."

John's hands grip his.

Sherlock meant to take John home, to make him tea and put the television on and clean up all of the experiments and anything, anything at all to keep John there and tell him, _I need you_. Instead, here they are, curled up together on a park bench in the freezing nighttime, Sherlock's face buried in John's hair, murmuring without even knowing what he's saying, not just _I need you_, but also _You're safe_ and _I will never let him touch you_ and _You are beautiful, every mark, every line, every inch of you_, until his voice gives out and John is shivering again and it's time to go.

He barely notices the walk to Baker Street, his coat wrapped awkwardly around the two of them to shield John from the cold and so much more.

Once they're inside, Sherlock's hands are steady and John doesn't stop him, arms limp at his sides as he sits on the couch and, for the third time, lets his flatmate's careful fingers undo the buttons of his shirt. The first time ended in fear, the second in shame, and John is terrified of what else there might be left to feel.

He doesn't expect Sherlock's fingertips against the desecrated skin again, more slowly this time than before and lingering on each mark. He doesn't expect warm breath over his shoulder when the cautious hands leave his back to pull him into an embrace. He doesn't expect Sherlock to kiss the scars, whispering over each one, _beautiful_ and _perfect_, and _mine_.

He expects to hate the words for lies, but the way Sherlock says them, every one is truth.

"Will you stay?" he whispers later, while Sherlock traces lazy circles on the skin he's claimed for his own. He thinks he knows the answer, but he needs to be sure.

"Of course. Always."

"What will we do now?" Because after all, everything is different now.

Sherlock weaves his fingers through John's hair and kisses him, letting the touch say all the things he can't.

_Solve crimes. Get hurt. Lose sleep. Argue. Run. Love._

"What _won't_ we do?" he whispers back.


End file.
